Shadows At Sunset. Anne Stuart
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memories of his long-lost mother. He didn’t know what prompted him to pick up the magazine the first place—he had no interest in Southern California or haunted mansions or the excesses of the young and beautiful.
But for some reason he’d picked up L.A. Life, thumbing through the pictorial on scandal sites of the century, and he’d stopped at an old, grainy newspaper photo, staring at his mother’s face. Back in the 1960s, a ragtag band of Hollywood street people had been arrested for trespassing on the deserted grounds of La Casa de Sombras, and his mother had been one of them. He couldn’t tell if his father was in the photo or remember if he’d ever been in L.A.—it was his mother who’d stood out, young and luminous even in black and white.
No one had bothered to prosecute and the interlopers had simply gone back to make their home in the ruined mansion in true sixties communal brotherhood, thereby hastening the decline of the historic property and sending the wealthy neighbors into apoplexy. And the Ivy League dropout, whose family owned La Casa, joined them.
That was how he’d found Jackson Dean Meyer, the first name he’d come across from that turbulent time that had ended in the loss of his mother. He’d learned early on not to ask questions of his family—his father would start to weep and drink even more heavily, and his Great-Aunt Esther would tell him to shut his mouth, accompanying the admonition with a crack across the face. She had mean, hard hands for such an old lady, and she’d died before he got bigger than she was and could stop her. Before he could find the answers to his questions.
But once he had a name, it had been easy enough to track down the black sheep. Jackson Dean Meyer had mended his ways, gone back to Harvard, acquired a graduate degree, three wives in reasonable succession, three grown children from his first marriage, one of whom was adopted, and two young ones from his third.
And control of a billion-dollar investment and development firm. He’d done well by himself, but then, he’d started off with several advantages, including a wealthy family. The house where he’d once dabbled in communal living now belonged to the children from his first marriage, and the old man lived in modern luxury in an estate in Bel Air.
Coltrane knew he was the man who would hold the answers to his past, to what happened to his mother, and Coltrane had every intention of asking politely.
His father used to tell him that his half-Irish mother had “the sight,” a curse Coltrane wondered if he’d inherited. He’d looked at his father one day and known he was going to die. Unfortunately he hadn’t known how soon it would happen.
That sight had reasserted itself the day he’d bluffed his way into Jackson Dean Meyer’s office, no mean feat given the layers of protection that surrounded the old man. He’d taken one look into his clear, calm eyes and known that this man had murdered his mother.
Of course Meyer had no earthly idea who Coltrane was. Nor did he care. But Coltrane was gifted at giving people what they wanted and getting them to trust him. It had been easy enough to work his way into the inner sanctum of Meyer Enterprises, into a position of power. The old man was a ruthless snake, and he detected a soul mate in Coltrane.
What hadn’t been easy was learning patience over the long years, the great gift of biding his time. He’d been in place for almost a year now, working his way into Jackson Meyer’s confidence to the point where he had total control of the legal department at Meyer Enterprises. Zack Coltrane, with the phony Ivy League degree, the charming smile and the California laid-back ease was poised and ready to take Jackson Dean Meyer down.
But he couldn’t make his move until he had all the answers. It wasn’t going to be enough to destroy Meyer financially. Killing him would be too easy. Coltrane had never killed anyone in his life, though he’d come close a few times. He suspected in the case of Jackson Meyer it wouldn’t require much effort. He hated him that much.
But death ended things. And he wanted an everlasting torment for the man who murdered his mother. Once he had proof. He wanted Meyer to know who destroyed him, and why.
Destroying his business and reputation would be merely a start, and he’d been working on that since he’d come to L.A. Destroying his family would be even better, an eye for an eye. Coltrane had grown up in the grinding, soulless poverty of the icy Midwest, with a father too drunk to even notice him since they’d lost the one thing that mattered to either of them. The least Coltrane could do was return the favor, no matter what that made him.
The problem was, finding someone Jackson Meyer cared about other than his own sleek, artificially tanned, fitness-center-buffed hide was no easy task. He treated his trophy wife like an impatient parent, his two young children like puppies who hadn’t been housebroken. As far as Coltrane could tell he didn’t even remember their names. And his daughter Jilly might as well not exist for all the mention that had been made of her.
But Rachel-Ann was different. Rachel-Ann was Meyer’s one weak spot, and that was who Coltrane intended to work on. He’d already managed to put enough pressure on Dean to get him out of the way—Meyer’s only son had conceded the battle without firing a single shot, retiring to his computers and an impressive case of the sulks. As for Jilly, she was simply a casualty of war—if he had time he’d take her, but she was merely a sideline.
From all reports Rachel-Ann had been hovering on the brink of destruction for most of her life. It seemed only fitting that he’d help push her over the edge, and then stand back and watch while Meyer went flailing after her. And he refused to think about what kind of man that made him.
He poured himself a Scotch, straight up, carrying it out onto the patio as he slowly sipped it. It was the best Scotch he could find, a single malt from a tiny distillery in the Hebrides, and it had become part of a ritual—a silent toast to the father who drank his life away. An arrogant daring of fate to try to do the same to him. After a decade he still hadn’t learned to like the taste of it, but he drank it, anyway, a small spit in the eye of the vengeful gods.
His plan was simple. He’d use Jilly to get to her fragile older sister, then go from there. He was a patient man, but he’d waited long enough. Time to up the ante. It wasn’t that he particularly wanted to harm innocents. But if Dean was anything to go by then Meyer’s grown children were far from innocent.
The Los Angeles night was settling down around him, and he stared out over the city, his back to the perfectly decorated apartment that was nothing more than a stage setting. He could feel the cool tingle of anticipation in his veins, a headier drug than the whiskey. By tomorrow night he’d be in the legendary Casa de Sombras, well on his way to the answers he’d spent years of his life looking for. And if he felt even a faint twinge of regret that Jilly Meyer was going to be one of the casualties of war, he dismissed it with a stray grimace.
He answered the phone on the third ring, just before the answering service would get it, knowing who it was.
“Did you get rid of her?” Jackson Dean Meyer barked into the phone.
“For now. You didn’t tell me you wanted me to do anything permanent,” he said lazily.
There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line. “Is there something permanent you could do?”
“I suppose I could find a hit man if you think it’s necessary….”
“I don’t find that amusing, Coltrane,” Meyer said icily. “I’m not in the habit of murdering my children.”
No, only your lovers, he thought calmly, eyeing his drink. “Then she’s going to keep after you until you give her what she wants. You know what women can be like.”
“She always was a stubborn bitch. Just like her mother,” Meyer snapped. “What is it exactly that she wants?”
“She wasn’t particularly clear about that, but I imagine it’s something along the lines of you loving your son and me being at the bottom of the ocean.”
Meyer’s dry chuckle sounded faintly asthmatic. “Made a good impression on her, did you? I warned you she could be difficult. What are you planning to do about her?”
“Take